Discovery S/T. Surely this record will be disparaged. Although, Pitchfork, for edification, seem keen on it, but then Andrew Sullivan reads Pitchfork. It's fun. It's cheesy. It is from someone from Vampire Weekend and chief precious Vampire appears on one track even. It's not fantastic. It is good fun. It's smart enough to keep from being obvious and it is difficult to picture its creators as pimps and pseudo-wannabes though maybe they are regular attendees of Coco Rosie's "Kill Whitey" parties that Brainwashed was so up in arms about when they weren't being greased by Kranky records. Do they all work for Kranky and does everyone who works for Kranky really love Loscil? I was at the grocery store and a man was wiping the rain off of his brand new Kia. I appreciated that he was taking pride in his Kia. It is raining here almost always. Every day. This is not normal. But then there isn't anything normal about weather, people can't seem to grasp that an average temperature does not mean that it is meant to be 87 on this date this year and next and the next and for the next 75 after that. It means that on some years it was 77 and on others it was 97 and all points in between. People only remember remarkable years, I can remember 1999 because it was like this year, it rained every afternoon during the summer. It was my first year in Denver. Then in 2002 it never rained. Were the members of Discovery yet born in 2002? The nice thing about youth is you aren't impeded by nostalgia. When making this album the boys were probably waxing reminiscent over Spin City. The first track is nearly over, it's basic corny indie dance music. It's VHS or Beta before they tried to disguise the fact that they were corny and from Kentucky. Before they became a lie to everything we hold dear. Before they betrayed the principles of corny indie dance music by thinking they were a real dance band. How many records did Vampire Weekend sell? They are played on the corporate "indie" station here. It is just A-Punk but still is almost a staple. The singer here has the same gentle, undescended voice as the fellow in Vampire Weekend, as proud to be hairless, as Bill Meyers would say. I always credit him, was he the first? Who knows. Writing lyrics about the internets seems a good way of dating yourself quickly, ask Figurine. Second track. A bit more ooomph, it's got some spy music appeal in the intro, a bit of Leslie Howard making clandestine trips to Portugal to agitate for change, to keep Franco out of the war, to soundtrack the chase as the Ju-88's were trailing the commercial airliner intent on making sure Ashley Wilkes never did make it back to Melanie. Leslie Howard was also the Scarlet Pimpernel which is allegedly some swashbuckling adventure but the adventure seems relegated to the rough and tumble world of cravats and boot buckles. Apparently he swept Merle Oberon off of her feet but what a strange lady she was, keeping her mother as her "Maid" going to Australia as a pretend Australian in some sort of official capacity having sordid affairs with men with facial scars. When will Emily Blunt play her in a mega-flopperoo biopic? I love this record. It is dancey, sorta, but it's tuneful enough to be a physical sensation in spirit as well. It is soft centered. When watching George Sanders take ages to kill Merle in The Lodger we could let our mind drift during the interminable dialogue about evil and genius and resolve to shuffle our hearts in time to Can You Discover?. I did mean Bill Meyers, not Bill Moyers. All of my favorite records from this year have been light hearted romps, the "Scarlet Pimpernel's" of indie music. Napoleon, Giorgio Tuma, Discovery, JJ, it's all a delight. Are there any serious records worth your time? I can't remember. Well there is Cortney Tidwell, she's amazing, and doughty and brilliant. But even that record has boldness more than pomp. Next Discovery track I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend. As this is Vampire Weekend related it will be despised by a fair percentage of the hipster population, though clearly Vampire Weekend are descended of their demographic, they just haven't acquired the guilt that accompanies one's ascension in the ranks of the privileged caste when you are slowly weaning yourself from the financial teats. This is really very simple, the chorus is infectiously stupid, very BMX Bandits obvious, and the chorus' jolly and easy to ridicule. The songs are so short, already on to So Insane. Will this inform the next Vamopire Weekend record? I think the dharma leaguer writes all of the songs for Vampire Weekend, he's surely got loads of tracks about cul-de-sacs and dactyls and the Columbia Used Book Store in his repertoire, enough to keep the spice this might add to the mix from frothing to attention. This is a mediocre track but in the context of the mediocre ambitions of the album it fits in nicely. Does this record have ambition? It seems designed to fly low beneath the radar. The other guy is in some other band that I've never heard of, no great feat there, and apparently this is closer in feel to that unknown entity than it is to Vampire Weekend and their African rhythms. Swing Tree, more of the same, it is all so delightfully pleasant. I am not a dance sophisticate, I don't take E nor do I own any ironic tee shirts, furry animal pants or glow stick jewelry so I don't know what I am talking about but if I was having junior high school kids over for a swinging dance party I would not feel ashamed playing this record. I might banish God Help the Girl from the house but not this. Hipsters, they come in different flavors. The precious and fey are sometimes difficult to eradicate, the "playing as paupers" wouldn't come to my party anyhow. I've never had a party. Swing Tree of course could refer to lynching and then we come back to Brainwashed, will they run an expose on the racist undertones? Probably. Brainwashed is at the vanguard of the movement against the RIAA you know, I imagine the Pirate Bay will be asking them to file an Amicus Curiae in sympathy sometime soon. Won't they? Girly boy vocals, very effete, lady boys. Now we've gone underwater but the beat keeps on going. Ezra Vampire is singing, it is hard to distinguish him from the other guy. Actually. It's a fine song. I like it. Were the Lodger named after The Lodger? It isn't much of a movie to be honest. My favorite scene was when the police inspector was trying to woo Merle Oberon by showing her the ghoulish assemblage of implements used in London's most gruesome crimes. I'd like to have that tea cup actually. A Jackson 5 cover now, how timely. I Want You Back. Of course it isn't a patch on the original but it's likable enough. All of the soul and emotion of the original has been leeched until the vinyl version is as bland and colorless as Michael Jackson's complexion. Part of this might be laziness, surely it is easier to fall back on the indie rock standby of ironic covers of mega pop hits than to write an interesting original. They are probably bearded by this stage of the record. Next track. The second to last track, It's Not My Fault(It's My Fault). Perhaps on the second album they will convince Maxwell to take lead vocals and they can cover There Goes A Tenner instead of the Jackson 5. They could have a cover photo with them shirtless, tips frosted, shoelaces untied. It will be marvelous. I don't mind that this song really doesn't go anywhere at all. It's just a loop of meaninglessness made to sound sacchariney. It's a thousand light years beyond Seeland though. have you heard the Seeland record? It is one of the worst records of all time. I am sure Brainwashed will love it because it is a side project of more respectable bands than Vampire Weekend and you are able to write ill thought out analogies between Seeland and your own life as a dissident in Amerikkka! Or you could compare it to one of my least favorite OMD songs ever. But Broadcast make brilliant record because the interesting people are still in the band, not because one of them left to join Seeland. Last song, Slang Tang, I rather like this, bubbling brook of twinkles and vagueness all tinder and suppression, all at once, it never flowers into a romp, it's a librarian's disco manual. Over.